A Late Halloween…

A very big LATE Happy Halloween to everyone here! 👻🎃🕷😂😛😁 (I was absolutely swamped by work this past week, but you are now probably getting very sick of hearing this by now lol!) I hope that you had a chance to celebrate this fun festival. From all those scary costumes to sickly parties, there are many things I enjoy about Halloween, but one of my favourite things, of course, is doing some ‘scary’ baking for it. I didn’t manage to find time to do that this year though, but I thought I will share my Halloween bakes from last year. 😉

These Halloween 🎃👻 coconut biscuits are vegan and made using dairy-free margarine. I adapted a recipe from the allrecipes UK website for the biscuits. (This is the link👉 http://allrecipes.co.uk/recipe/33572/vegan-coconut-biscuits.aspx) The icing is made from icing sugar mixed with coconut milk and food colouring. It’s a very straightforward recipe that I was able to whip up before a Halloween night out, and it was fun to able to enjoy these snacks (with some booze of course haha!) before hitting the ‘haunted’ city. 🌃

Though baking wasn’t on the card this year, I still got to celebrate the festival last night attending a ‘Twisted Circus’ event in Clapham. Didn’t manage to drink much this time, as the price tags were super high! 😅 But it was still a good night out! 😉

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Rolling in the Deep Fryer

Do you enjoy doughnuts? 🍩🍩🍩 I always love a good doughnut, especially ones topped with chocolates! 😋 It has been one of the bakes that I gave myself a goal to make, though I kept putting it off to avoid the messiness that could come with deep frying in my small apartment. (The nightmare scenario of hot oil spluttering all over my bed! 😰😰) Therefore, this time while I am staying at my family’s home, I decided to make full use of the kitchen here to make some doughnuts.😉 (Though my mum wasn’t particularly happy with the mess I created afterwards…😅😅)

For my first time making them, I felt I did a decent job.😁 I adapted a recipe from the allrecipes UK website (Link: http://allrecipes.co.uk/recipe/4920/crispy-and-creamy-doughnuts.aspx), though I omitted the egg as I ran out of them in the kitchen and added a bit more water in place of it.😛 I made two kinds of doughnuts, one with chocolate and the other was lemon and blueberry. I did have a bit of issue with the dough being too wet and sticky, so was struggling with the shaping until I added more flour. When it came to the frying, I did a few doughnuts as testers to gauge how I should fry them and they seemed to come out better when fried with a lower heat. (No, I didn’t have a thermomter…) And I underestimated how big these doughnuts would expand as they cook, so they came out quite big. At least we were hungry lol! 😂

Have you made doughnuts before? Feel free to leave any thoughts or advices in the comments below! 😊

Busy Busy Bees 🐝

How are you all getting on this Monday? Are you all being busy bees back to work? Don’t forget no matter how busy you get, always take time to relax and spend time with your loved ones. (One of the good thing about living alone is you can ignore the latter haha 😛)

As a child, I was very lucky to have a family who worked very hard in order for me to get the life I have now. Whether you’re trying to earn a living for yourself or your loved ones, I commend you for your hard work and your determination to make the most of your lives. And, to commemorate those of you busy bees out there, I would like to share this recipe of my bumble bee lemon cupcakes. Best wishes to the rest of the week! And keep fighting! 💪

Bumble Bee Lemon Cupcakes

Quantity: 12 cupcakes

Ingredients:

For the cake batter:

125g unsalted butter, soft

125g caster sugar

125g self-raising flour

2 large eggs

1 lemon, zest only

1 tsp baking powder

For the lemon icing:

250g icing sugar

2 tbsp lemon juice

1 lemon, zest only

Yellow food colouring

For the bumble bees:

Yellow fondant

Dark chocolate, melted

Dr. Oetker Chocolate Hearts (alternatively, you can temper your own chocolate)

Other decorations:

Wafer flowers

Popping candies

Method:

1. Preheat your oven to 200C/400F/gas 6.

2. Cream the butter with the caster sugar using an electric whisk.

3. Sieve your flour, and add the rest of the cake ingredients into the butter mixture. Beat or whisk until well-combined and smooth.

4. Line muffin tin with cupcake paper cases. Place the batter evenly across the cases. Bake the cupcakes for 12-15 minutes, or until golden and a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. Cool the cupcakes on a wire rack once ready.

5. For the icing, sieve the icing sugar into a large bowl. Add the remaining ingredients and beat until smooth. If your icing is too wet, add more icing sugar to thicken it.

6. To make the bumble bees, roll yellow fondant into small balls. Pipe the melted dark chocolate to form the stripes and the eyes. Insert the chocolate hearts on it to form the wings.

7. Once the cupcakes are completely cooled, spread or pipe the icing on top and decorate with the bumble bees, wafer flowers and popping candies.